ep 1: who am i? where am i going?

Growing Pains is a podcast where Leela discusses navigating life as a 20-year-old and finding balance in adulthood. She talks about her personal experiences and struggles with self-identity. Leela also explores the pressures of social media and the need to constantly keep up with trends. She emphasizes the importance of having a strong sense of self and encourages listeners to share their stories and feedback. In the first episode, Leela discusses her own journey of self-identity and the difficulties of figuring out who she is in a society that values external validation. She also mentions the pressures from parents and the education system. Hello, hello and welcome to Growing Pains. My name is Leela and it is such a pleasure to have you joining me on my little corner of the internet. Thank you so much for being here. Now, you might be wondering, what is Growing Pains? And that is a completely valid answer and one I would like to take a minute to talk about. So Growing Pains started as a concept I had a little while back when I was going through a period of massive change and uncertainty in my life and I wanted to kind of create this or find this space where I could discuss navigating life as a 20 year old and how it feels to kind of be thrown in at the deep end of adulthood and finding balance in life, trying to figure out who you are, where you stand, how to put roots down, where to put roots down. And I figured the best way to find that space was simply to create it myself. So, here I am. This is going to be a space for honesty, growth, connection and, you know, self-identity and introspection. And this is a mildly selfish venture, I will admit, because I'm going to be using this kind of to hold myself to account a little bit, you know, on this journey of figuring out who I am. This is kind of like a diary for me in a way. But before we get into the podcast, who am I? As I said, my name is Lula. I am 20 years old and I am a second year university student. I am studying towards a Bachelor's of Science in Combined Anthropology. So what that means is I study both biological anthropology, which is looking at the physical biological evolution of humanity. And I also look at culture and society, how culture has developed and also studying other cultures and societies, which I love. I love my degree. I've always had such an interest in people. I just have my whole life. I am a big reader. I am a literature nerd to the extreme. I am the child of a linguist. So that's kind of where I get it from. I'm a foodie, self-described foodie, always have been. Food's a huge thing in my family. Dinner parties and cooking for other people is a huge thing in my family. It's kind of how we show love for each other. So I think that's where I get my love of food. I am the younger child of two kids. So I used to live with my parents and my older brother, Ben, who is four years older than me. I have now moved out for uni and my brother's also moved out for work. I was born in Paris. That's originally where I'm from, but I am a Brit and I have been living in the UK for 13 years. So that's where my home base is. I felt it was important to document and share this kind of phase in my life because while there is a lot of discussion around why your 20s are the time to make mistakes and figure things out, I didn't really feel particularly like I could find spaces where people were actually discussing what it's like in that moment to be feeling those things, to be struggling with this, I think this kind of universal difficulty of finding your place and connecting with others. So that is why I'm here. I want to cover topics like personal growth, relationships, career explorations, mental health, hobbies, life experiences. I want it to be conversational. I want it to feel like, you know, you're just sort of listening to a voice memo that one of your friends has sent you. I want it to be reflective, both for myself and also for you. And I also want it to be lighthearted. I think it can be difficult sometimes to broach certain conversations because they feel so heavy. So I want to do this in a way that makes those topics that may be seen a little bit tricky, a little bit easier to digest. I will be looking at doing some Q&A sessions and themed episodes, maybe having some guests on. So if you guys ever have any questions, stories, feedback, please do feel free to share those with me. Now, into today's episode, I wanted to start out my first episode by discussing who am I and where am I going? My thoughts on self-identity at 20 and the pressures that often come with that, the uncertainty, the difficulty, but also the joys of figuring it all out. Feeling lost and unsure of my path is not a feeling that I am new to. Quite frankly, it is something that I have felt for most of my life. I have pretty bad imposter syndrome, as I think a lot of people do. But I also grew up a people pleaser and an anxious kid. So for most of my life, I have had this kind of overwhelming feeling of I don't know who I am, but I'm going to be what everyone else wants me to be so that they like me. A perfectly understandable way of thinking when you break it down, because in terms of survival, we need other people to like us. If other people don't like us, we get cut out from society. If we get cut out from society, we become isolated and lonely. And if we're isolated and lonely, we can often become depressed and struggle to survive. So, you know, that train of thought kind of makes sense. The issue comes when you build your entire person on being what other people want you to be, which is quite honestly what I did for a long time. And it has taken me up until very recently, and a lot of therapy to realise that. It's a really difficult reality coming to terms with the fact that you don't really know who you are in terms of your own person. And when you step away from other people's expectations, and this image that other people have of you, who are you? It is so beyond important to have a strong sense of self. And it's something that is taught to kids from a young age, you know, being unique and true to who you are is so important. But very often in such a fast paced society, particularly where social media is so involved, it can be really difficult to figure out who you are without relying on other people to tell you. I think social media kind of really plays into that on a massive level. Because when you scroll through social media, even if you fill your feed with people who you admire, they are only posting a very specific part of their life. I do the same thing. I hand pick what I want to put on my Instagram or my TikTok or whatever. And that is the image that I put out there. That's what I let people see. I show them the best sides of me, the best angles, the best photos of me and my friends doing really cool things. Or when I'm on holiday, or when I'm on date nights with my boyfriend, when I'm spending time with my family. There is so much of my life as you know, I think applies to everyone. There's so much of all of our lives that goes unseen. And so people looking at it from the outside, even if logically you know, oh, she's only showing one part of her life on social media, her life isn't actually perfect. You're only seeing that bit. So it can be really difficult to remember that you're only seeing that one perfect part. There is so much more to life than that. And I think that can really complicate figuring out who you are. Particularly when there is this huge emphasis now on following trends. With TikTok, we've seen the rise in micro trends, which is something that I find so fascinating. Trends have always been a thing. There's always been a style, whether that's fashion or home or whatever it is, a career, a place to go on holiday has been trendy. And so, you know, out of desire to want to fit in with other people and fit in with society, people will do what is trendy. We are taught that if something's trending, it means that it is admirable, that it is desirable, and therefore we want it. Before the rise of social media and the rise of the internet, trends moved at a pretty slow pace, all things considered. If you look at fashion and break it down into decades, there is a very clear distinction between decades. But it takes longer for that distinction to become evident. If you look at 1920s style in comparison to 1930s, 1940s style, there is a difference there. But it's a difference that took 10, 20 years to develop. Now, trends are changing overnight with TikTok and short form media. Because TikTok did style as a short form media platform, it started out with 10, 15 second limits on videos. Things move so quickly. When you have this access to a never ending supply of interactive media at your fingertips, where you can just keep scrolling and keep seeing new things, of course, the world is going to move very quickly. And so trends have to keep up with that. You know, one day, it might be the clean girl aesthetics trending. The next day, it's maximalist. The next day, it's cottagecore. The next day, it's something really niche. You know, we saw a lot with the makeup community and the beauty community, where you had things like blueberry milk nails. It was just like a pale blue nail, glazed donut nails, things like that. These micro trends that are so tiny and so not even necessarily niche, just refer to something so trivial and move so quickly, there is so much pressure to constantly keep up with it. I fall victim to this all the time. I will find myself making a million and one Pinterest boards with a million and one different aesthetics, trying to figure out, okay, how do I want to dress? How do I want to present myself to the world? How does that fit in with X, Y and Z? It's so easy to do. It's so easy to do. That just all adds to the complications of figuring out who you are. And there are a lot of aspects of life that haven't changed. Even with social media, there's always been parental pressure, for instance, and pressure from the education system. So let's take, for example, when I was maybe 12 or 13, I was at secondary school, I was sat in an assembly, and our head teacher came in and showed us a graph with showing a correlation between grades achieved and most likely career. And I remember looking at it, and he was saying that if you don't start achieving now, you're going to fall behind, and you will only be able to do certain jobs. And it really hit me like a ton of bricks. And I was like, shit, I have to, I have to step up my pace. I have to keep up because if I don't, if I don't get ahead of the curve, where am I going to end up? Not long after this assembly, we had some aptitude tests. So aptitude tests are tests on what kind of career you'd be suitable for based on your interests, your passions, and your abilities. And my results were either lawyer, local government or policymaker. And all of the adults in my life were overjoyed when they saw lawyer, because being a lawyer is considered a very prestigious job, as it should be. It's a difficult job. It takes years of education and training and dedication. And I completely understand why it is seen as a good job. But me being 13, and a people pleaser, and wanting to do whatever adults told me I should do, when I heard, Oh, my God, you'd be fantastic at that. Yep, you're doing it, you're going to go to university, you're going to go to law school, you're going to be top of your field, you're going to be a lawyer, I said, Okay, cool. That's what I want, I guess. And I didn't stop to question it, because it's what I was told I should want. It was an end goal that would result in the adults in my life, being proud of me, it would result in a good salary. And in terms of society would mean that I had succeeded, I'd be providing back to society by representing people in court. And that seemed, you know, like a pretty great thing. So I just didn't really question it. I went on about my life, I did internships with legal departments, I spent hours researching what universities for best law and how I could get that I spent so long studying. And then it came to doing my A levels when I was 18. And A levels are the exam to do before university here in the UK. And I remember sitting down on one occasion, and staring at my law booklet, and just thinking to myself, I hate this. I hate it, I don't want to do it. And it was a really odd feeling for me, because I actually enjoyed studying law, I found it so interesting. But when I looked forward, and when I thought about studying law and being a lawyer, it made me miserable. But I thought, no, I've come this far. And it's what people are expecting me to do. So I thought I couldn't back out, because if I backed out, I'd be letting people down. Not long after that, I had a conversation with one of my brother's friends. And she sort of said to me, it's never too late to change your mind. And there is no point dedicating your life to doing something that's going to make you miserable. Because even if you succeed, outwardly, even if you reach a certain level of notoriety in your, in your degree, and in your chosen profession, even if you're making a certain amount of money, if you are not happy, and you're not enjoying it, then you haven't truly succeeded. And so I went and spoke to my parents, and I was so scared to talk to them, which is ridiculous, because they are hands down the most supportive people I know. And they said to me, okay, well, what do you want to do? And it wasn't until they asked me what I wanted to do, that I actually realized I had no idea. I had had my heart set on law for so long. And now I've had this realization that that wasn't what I wanted. And my world kind of came crashing down around me. What did I want to do? Who did I want to be? Who was I in that moment of time, you know, in that exact moment? Where was I going? And so they encouraged me to take a route to work and figure out exactly what I wanted to do. And so I took a year out, I worked, and I was lucky enough to find anthropology. But I kind of tripped myself up and made the same mistake I'd made before. I found the degree I wanted to do. And so I just figured, okay, well, that's next step sorted. So that's fine. That's my life sorted out. Now I know who I am, I'm going to uni, I'm going to be a uni student, I'm going to do anthropology. And then I got to uni. And when you're at university, you are really thrown in at the deep end. You are having to move away from home, for a lot of people anyway. You are having to cook and clean and look after yourself, you are having to do your educational work, you are having to do maybe an actual job outside of that. And you are having to socialize and put roots down and figure out who you are. And you're friends, you have to build all these new relationships. And my God, is it exhausting. And I found that when I got to university, I still wasn't very sure if I was a person. I was 19 when I started. So you know, it's no shock. I'm not expecting to even know who I am fully now. I think that would be weird. We change throughout our lives. That's inevitable. But I was really at this point where I have no idea where to start. And I was sort of like, okay, well, I'll reinvent myself. But what did that mean? Who do I want to be at the end of it? And, you know, who would I have to be to fit in? And so I think so often, wanting to fit in, as I was talking about earlier, is so important, that we mould who we are to what we think other people want us to be, and to fit their expectations. But very often, that results in us not being true to ourselves. Now, I got very lucky in the fact that I found some friends very quickly, very early on, who I didn't really have time to pretend to be anything around them. And they took me in and loved me for who I was. And I am beyond grateful for them. It's the same thing with my partner, he sort of, we met very early on, and I didn't have time to figure out who I wanted to be. So I just had to go for it. And he loved what he saw. But I was still left with this feeling of I don't actually know who I am. I am, to some people, a daughter, to others, a sister, to others, a friend, to some, an employee, to some, a student. But when I step back and I look at it, and when I consider who I am to me, I have absolutely no clue. And so I've been going on this journey recently of trying to figure out how I find myself and how I feel comfortable being me without feeling imposter syndrome, and without having to worry about what other people think, or change who I am based on what I think other people expect me to be. Because it doesn't get you anywhere. It is exhausting, constantly jumping through hoops for other people. One of the ways that I've been trying to be more comfortable with myself and trying to put my imposter syndrome at ease, and one of the ways I'm also trying to explore who I am a little bit more is by spending more intentional time with myself. I say intentional because, of course, we all spend time with ourselves. We are literally with ourselves and our brains 100% of the time. We're the only person that we spend all of our time with. There is no way of escaping that. But taking intentional time, where I choose to spend time just by myself doing whatever it is that I deem to be the right activity at that time, has been honestly life-changing. I kind of view it sort of like dating, or speed dating in a way, I guess. When you are dating and you're getting to know people, you go out on dates, you go to places, you ask questions to get to know each other about your likes, your dislikes, your interests, your dreams, your goals, your aspirations. And I realized that I needed to do that with myself. And so I have started spending either a couple of hours or maybe an entire day just with myself. I'll take myself out on walks. I'll take myself out on a little coffee date. I will go for lunch. I will go shopping. I'll do these little bits and pieces by myself, things I want to do. And while I do them, I will either have music or maybe even a podcast sometimes, or an audiobook. And I will take that time to really be at peace with myself and to kind of reflect, to be a bit introspective, to look inwards and reflect on what I find. And I'll ask myself questions like, when I look to my future, not career-wise, but when I look to my future, let's say 10 years down the line, what do I see? What do I want? And if you had asked me now, when you look to your future 10 years down the line, when you're 30 turning 31, what do you see? Again, not career-wise, not sort of any typical life stage-wise, like marriage or kids or whatever it is that people tend to define life stages by. What is it? What are your goals? What do you want? And when I look to that, I see a house full of warmth and love and laughter. I really desperately want a cat. So probably a cat, let's be honest. I can picture the way I want to decorate the space. I can picture having dinner parties with my friends and going out for coffee dates and brunch dates and going to yoga classes and taking time to be at one with myself and the world around me. Those are the kinds of things that I see. And when I started thinking about it in that way of taking out career goals and these huge aspirations of like the little things like waking up in the morning with my partner and making breakfast and having a cup of tea, that's what I want. I sort of started to realise like, oh, OK, it is digestible, it is manageable. And how do I get there? It's all about kind of changing, for me anyway, changing my perception of success and what it means to me to succeed, because I realised that I could have all of these things. I could have a high-flying career and make a lot of money. But if I'm not content outside of that, then I'm not content at all. So I want to focus on building myself a soft life, a life that is more slow and intentional so that I can have these, you know, career goals. God knows what I'm going to do. I'm probably going to end up in a corporate job and I'm fine with that. But the thing that I want most is my life outside of that to be full and to fulfil me. Another way that I am trying to kind of spend more intentional time with myself is hobbies. I talked a little earlier about how I am a reader, and that's true. I love reading. I'm trying to read more broadly. I've always been more of a fiction and poetry reader. Recently, I've been trying to read more non-fiction. I honestly think reading in any form, whether it's magazine articles or comic books, is so massively important. Anything that makes you think, no matter how it's making you think, is important. I am also recently a crocheter. I got into it last year. It's another thing that I was influenced to do by my mum, actually, because she has always created these beautiful crochet items. And I was so in awe of her that I decided I wanted to learn how to do that too. So it's something that I have been learning to do and that I do enjoy. I like the fact that it takes up enough of my brain that I'm not overthinking, because I'm a huge overthinker. I am plagued by constant thoughts of anxiety, of embarrassment from years ago, of stress over things I have to get done. That relaxing can be quite difficult for me. So something like crochet, where it involves just enough of my brain and also the use of my hands that is not letting me slip into overthinking, but it's not using so much of my brain that I feel tired at the end of it. I love it. Another thing I've been doing more recently is yoga. I've been doing yoga for years. I am hypermobile, so it just really helps me with tension in my muscles. But I've been doing more, I hate to use the word again, but intentional yoga, where I actually take time to be grounded. Because when you are doing yoga, if any of you have done it, you will know that at least, probably I'd say at least two parts of your body are making contact with the ground at any given moment. And I find that focusing on the parts of my body that are actually physically grounded, the way my body is moving, is massively beneficial for me. So I've been doing more yoga recently as well. And I'm trying to develop more hobbies. I'm getting into journaling recently. I used to dismiss journaling. I don't know why. I used to kind of just think, oh, it's not for me. But since I've started doing it, I've realized that no, it's a really useful tool. And you don't necessarily have to write about your feelings. I have two journals. I have one where I have sort of, it's more of a creative outlet. I doodle. I'm really bad at drawing, but I just doodle. I like doing Zentangles because they don't have to be perfect. And I just write about things that I find interesting, that I've read, that I've listened to, that I've seen on the internet, whatever, just things I found interesting. And then I have my other journal, which is more of a typical journal where I keep track of habits. I talk about my dreams, both aspiration-wise and also my literal dreams that I have at night, my feelings, how I'm doing, gratitude. One thing I find is very easy to do is to get caught up in the negatives, which is why I'm trying to gratitude journal more. It's completely understandable why we do it. It's a survival mechanism. It started because if we can identify things that have gone wrong and that have hurt us, we can plan for the future to prevent them from happening so we don't get hurt again. So it's completely understandable why we focus on the negatives more than we focus on the positives, but spending too much time focusing on the negatives does far more bad than it does good. So I'm trying to really be a little more positive. I can be a little bit pessimistic at times, which I am aware of. It's not my favorite trait, but that's okay. You know, I'm a human being, but it is something that I am trying to work on, to be more grateful about the things that I have in life rather than getting caught up in things that have hurt me in the past because there's only so much rehashing of the past that anyone can really handle. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I'm still learning. When it comes to who I am and where am I going, I don't know. I, quite frankly, couldn't tell you. I am trying to be more comfortable with that. I'm trying to be more comfortable with the fact that it is a journey and it's a marathon, not a sprint. It's not something that I can just skip to the end. And quite frankly, it'd be really depressing if I did just skip the end because there is so much joy to be had in between. And there are going to be times of struggle, of course there are. And there are going to be times when I am frustrated and hurting and of course there are. But there's going to be so much good in between. And I guess that's kind of what I'm here to do. I'm here to share that. I'm here to share the difficulties and the realities and to kind of maybe reassure you that you're not alone in your feeling lost. But also emphasize that there is so much value in embracing the journey that we're all on, even when it's messy. Mess can be beautiful sometimes and the journey doesn't have to be such a struggle. So, I would love you all to pop a comment, send me a message, giving me a little bit of feedback, maybe asking questions, themes that you'd like me to discuss in the future. Thank you for joining and for being here with me. I really, I cannot say, I cannot put into words how much I appreciate you sharing your time with me. We have such limited time on this earth and so the fact that you're willing to give some of it to me means just a huge amount. Next week, I'm going to be talking about self-care and what self-care actually is, what it means to me and how self-care's kind of, it's become lost in social media and I think often confused with consumption. So, thank you again for listening to Growing Pains. Keep growing, keep learning and I will catch you next time.